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I was child-free this weekend, so after watching Spain’s gorgeous overtime goal against the Netherlands in the World Cup, I wandered around the corner to the Village 7 to see Lisa Cholodenko’s extraordinarily delightful film The Kids Are All Right. Though the movie opened in just five markets at seven theatres, it yielded the highest box office gross per screen for all of 2010. If it’s playing near you and you haven’t seen it, go. (If it’s not playing near you – request it!) The Kids Are All Right is a pitch perfect portrait of motherhood, marriage and modern life.
Cholodenko’s script is by turns hilarious and heartbreaking and the movie’s stars – Annette Bening, Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo – give some of the most incredibly rich, nuanced, smart and joyful performances I’ve ever seen. What is perhaps even more impressive, though, are the realistic and relaxed portrayals of the high-school aged children in the film. 20-year-old Mia Wasikowska and 17-year-old Josh Hutcherson effortlessly play all the dynamics of teenagers from youthful innocence to bratty self-absorbtion topped off with a dash of angst.
It’s impossible to write about The Kids Are All Right without acknowledging that, yes, it is a story about a lesbian couple raising children, and it touches on several of the issues we’ve covered lately here at Strollerderby. The nuclear family at the heart of the film is very strong, reflecting the notion that lesbians raise happy, successful children. But those children inevitably wonder who their moms’s (as they say in the film) sperm donor was, eventually seeking him out and welcoming him into their family in such a way that creates a surprising plot. No spoiler alerts here! I want you to go see the film for yourself.
The gals at LilSugar do too. Here are their 5 Reasons Why Every Mom Should See The Kids Are All Right. For those of you who might be worried this is a political film pushing the gay agenda, it’s not. It does portray gay characters in a positive light – and as normal, contributing members of mainstream society – but that’s exactly what Cholodenko set out to do. In a personal essay for Harper’s Bazaar, she writes: Continue reading »
The Chicago Tribune reported last week that a woman, identified as Wendy, “who raised two adopted children for years in a same-sex relationship is not considered their parent under Wisconsin law,” according to the District 4 Court of Appeals. The court ruled Thursday that Wendy’s former partner Liz is the only legal parent of the children because their adoptions were processed under Liz’s name. ”Same-sex couples do not have adoption rights in Wisconsin, meaning that only one of them can be considered the legal parent,” according to the Tribune.
As you can imagine, this decision is crushing for Wendy, who was a stay-at-home mom to the children for seven years. In response to the judge’s ruling, Wendy said, “I shouldn’t have to fight to parent my kids who I’ve been parenting 24-7. For me to read in the court documents that I’m not a parent is disturbing and troubling.” She is considering taking her case to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
This ruling is in line with a recent decision by a judge in the UK, who determined the non-biological lesbian mother of a ten-year-old boy is not his legal parent. It does not, however, follow the precedent just set by the U.S. government allowing the partners of gay biological and adoptive parents who have an in loco parentis relationship with their partner’s child to care for said child under the Family and Medical Leave Act. The FMLA ruling does not indicate that non-biological gay parents are the legal parents of a child they care for, but that they have a legal right to care for their child. If gay parents have a legal right to care for a child that is ostensibly their child via the aforementioned in loco parentis relationship, then why, provided that they are responsible and loving parents, is it so difficult for non-biological/adoptive gay parents to be granted the same parental rights after a split? It just doesn’t make sense. Continue reading »
A High Court judge in the U.K. ruled on Friday that the non-biological lesbian mother of a 10-year-old boy is not required to pay child maintenance to her former girlfriend. The couple had not entered into a civil union and therefore Justice Moylan said the non-biological mother could not be deemed a legal parent, despite being a “social and psychological” one.
Moylan said, “I have come to the clear conclusion that those against whom orders can be made… are confined to those who are a parent in the legal meaning of the word,” Lemondrop U.K. reports. The judge does not consider the non-biological mother a legal parent despite the fact that she won a court order for shared residence with her son. Moylan said the shared custody might appear “persuasive” in the argument for her to be defined as a legal parent, but “the mere obtaining of parental responsibility is clearly not intended to make someone a legal parent when they would not otherwise be such.” Meaning, for example, that a grandmother who is granted the temporary custody of her grandchild does not suddenly become the child’s legal parent.
So the non-biological mother in this case, known only as B, has a right to see her son, but not a responsibility to pay child support. Hmm… that’s sticky. How can we normalize same-sex parenting if we don’t hold gay parents to the same legal standards as hetero parents? Continue reading »
A new study from the Institute for American Values finds that teens and adults conceived using donor sperm will sometimes answer yes to leading questions about feeling confused about their parentage or distressed about not knowing their biological father.
That’s not the headline they’re touting as they promote the upcoming study. Instead they’re pushing the findings that make sperm donation look like a problem. Study authors Karen Clark and Elizabeth Marquardt have an essay in Slate today in which they stress the suffering of kids conceived through sperm donation.
They don’t mention that those same kids are more likely than others to donate sperm, eggs or the use of their wombs, nor do they focus long on recent research that shows lesbian moms do the best job raising their kids.
Sorry, ladies, your conservative agenda is showing.
A hundred years ago, feminist writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman envisioned a world in which parthenogenic women spontaneously reproduced, living in an all-female society of perfect peace and freedom and joy, free from want and war.
She might have been onto something. The Atlantic Monthly just published an article asking if we really need fathers at all.
There’s a mountain of science showing problems for kids who grow up without their dads. Fatherless children are more likely than their peers to suffer problems ranging from attachment issues to asthma. They do worse in school, use more drugs, commit more crimes.
Problem is, most of that science is junk.
The first conception to adolescence study to follow daughters and sons of lesbian couples has found that kids raised by two female parents grow up to be better adjusted and higher achieving than their peers.
The U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS) followed 77 lesbian families for 25 years when they were first starting the donor insemination process. Those kids are now 18 to 23 years old, and the most recent data was collected by asking parents and their now 17-year-old kids to fill out standardized psychological questionnaires about their feelings and experiences.
The NLLFS discovered that teens raised by lesbian parents are rated higher in social and academic areas, as well as overall confidence, and have lower rates of negative teen behaviors like rule-breaking and aggression. This came as a surprise to NLLFS principal investigator Nanette Gartrell, MD, who told CNN.com, “I would have anticipated the kids would be doing as well as the normative sample. I didn’t expect better.”
“America’s got a bad case of gayby fever,” writes Thomas Rogers at Salon, who says that the gay parenting boom is reshaping the American family.
According to a 2007 study, more than one in three lesbians has given birth and one in six gay men have fathered or adopted a child. The same studied showed that more than half of gay men and 41 percent of lesbians say they want to have a child.
Pop culture is keeping up with the trend. The Sundance hit “The Kids Are Alright,” starring Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as gay parents, is already getting buzz as the “must-see” movie of the summer. Hit TV show “Modern Family” features gay parents. Dan Savage’s memoir “The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant” has just been turned into an off-Broadway musical.
And celebrities such as Ricky Martin, Clay Aiken, Rosie O’Donnell, Melissa Etheridge serve as the unofficial spokespeople for gay parenthood. Continue reading »
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